


The Surgery

by SkipandDi (ladyflowdi)



Series: Moments from the Infiltrate Universe [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Adopted Sibling Relationship, Adoption, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Married Couple, Married Life, Old Married Couple, Older Characters, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-19
Updated: 2015-09-19
Packaged: 2018-04-21 12:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4829528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyflowdi/pseuds/SkipandDi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Andrew practically skids into the room, a panicked look on his face. "Papa, Dad fell down the stairs."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Surgery

This is how it begins.

Sherlock is used to hearing all kinds of sounds at Baker Street. Slamming doors and drawers, fighting, yelling, obnoxious music, the whirling machines of Andrew's demented design, phones ringing, toys dropping, books dropping, bags dropping. Silence is a mostly theoretical concept, even now, with only Kaden in the house. It seems like none of their children are ever gone more than a week anyway, always coming up with reasons to come by, to eat their food and harass their parents. Sherlock's been enjoying the rare instance of isolation, with their youngest in school, John and Andrew out buying supplies for baby George while he was at nursery. He register¬s their return only distantly, still engrossed in the crimes detailed in The Guardian.

The series of thuds Sherlock hears from the kitchen are unique, and by the time he's figured it out it's much too late.

Andrew practically skids into the room, a panicked look on his face. "Papa, Dad fell down the stairs."

Sherlock puts down the paper and follows his son to the landing, where, sure enough, John is half-sprawled and dazed at the entrance to Baker Street. "Dammit," Sherlock snaps, and hurries down the steps. 

John is moving slowly, carefully, trying to get himself into a sitting position. His hair, mostly grey by now, is pressed up on one side, where he must have hit the steps with it. Sherlock frowns fiercely. "John, pay attention, look at me." 

John looks up, a fuzzy expression on his face Sherlock hates. "Sherlock. Sorry, I--"

"I know what happened, stop talking and follow my finger." John obediently tracks Sherlock's index finger with his eyes, though they are pinched with pain. "Anything broken?"

"I don't think so," John says, then seems to reevaluate his statement as Sherlock sits him up straighter. "My bloody foot is killing me." 

"Dad, are you okay?" Andrew asks.

"I'm fine," John lies, face white as a sheet. "Just clumsy."

Sherlock shoots him a sharp look, which John ignores in favor of extending his good arm out to Sherlock. "Help me up?"

Sherlock and Andrew get John standing, though he winces horribly as they put his arms around their shoulders. They don't even try the stairs again, just guide him into Mrs. Hudson's flat, where she flutters about in a panic while they settle him on the sofa. They don't call the EMTs, because it happened in their foyer, which means Mycroft's spies will have already alerted the authorities. Sherlock sits next to John while Andrew continues to play the wary sentry, standing and staring down at John with his arms crossed as if John has done him some great misdeed. Par for the course; Andrew was perpetually worried. 

"Your spatial abilities are not to blame for this," Sherlock says, taking the icepack Mrs. Hudson hands him, holding it to John's head. "Just like they weren't to blame the last two times you 'tripped'."

John sighs. "No, but what am I supposed to do about it?" He's already had the pins in his ankle replaced once, the bones reset ten years back. They weren't meant to be put under this kind of strain, not this often, not for this amount of time. 

"Nothing," Sherlock says, because he's already found a solution, and it's ready for them as soon as they pack their bags.

.

_"Sherlock, you're being a lunatic."_

Lucy is four doors away from what she's been informed is her dad's hospital bed, but considering it's _his_ voice she can hear down the hall, and not her father's deep, scathing rhetoric on the failings of this hospital and everyone in it, perhaps there _is_ cause for alarm.

"Alright, I'm here, how did you damage yourself?" she announces, opening the door. Her sister is sitting in a chair by the window, working on a tablet; Andrew is sitting next to her, sullen and impatient, his hair a wretched mass of curls.

A darker set of the same curls flop over her father's head as paces the room in quick, dangerous steps, sharp like a curved blade, his expression foreboding. Kaden is standing next to their dad, and his wide eyes are the only ones that brighten at her entrance; their dad is too busy rolling his.

"Great," Dad directs at her father, "just what you need -- backup."

"You ignored my text," Papa tells her, which because he does not like stating the obvious means _'I am not happy with you'._

"He's obviously fine," Lucy answers. Across the room Andrew sighs loudly.

"Your concern is overwhelming," Dad says to her dryly, though his expression is amused.

She steps next to Kaden and leans down to kiss her dad's temple. "I'm glad you're okay, Dad."

"I knew getting into the arts would degrade your mind," her father snaps. "He's obviously _not_ fine, use your brain for a few seconds."

"Because he has a limp in, oh, wait, _the same leg he already has a limp in?"_

"He can barely navigate the stairs as it is. There's no way he can be expected to regularly manage now."

"You two make me sound like a dog who needs to be put down, just so you know," Dad says calmly.

"They're just worried about you." Kaden stage-whispers, while Lucy and Papa glare at each other.

"Well what are you going to do about it, install a lift?" Monica asks.

"Don't be ridiculous. We're moving to Sussex."

Five heads swivel in Papa’s direction, but her dad's the one who gets the question out first. "What in the hell would make you think I'd move to Sussex?"

"John," her father starts, in a tone that means he's about to drop a bombshell he fully expects to talk his way out of, "I may not have mentioned it before, but I invested a few years back in a small honey company based in Sussex."

"You're not referring to people, are you?" her dad asks, almost hesitantly. "I don't know if I could put up with some kind of pornography ring right now."

Her father's look is offended enough to put them all at ease -- except for Andrew, who hadn't been remotely concerned in the first place. "Look," he starts, standing up. "This is exciting and all, but you're not going to move before the end of the month at the earliest -- which isn't likely because Dad's totally going to drag his feet and Papa you're going to make them rebuild half the house you picked out anyways, so there's no reason I need to be around for this and I've left an experiment that could really kill a lot of people if it's not properly monitored."

Their dad rubs the space between his eyes with two fingers while their father glares daggers at Andrew. "The house is perfectly acceptable as is."

Andrew snorts as he pulls on his coat. "You say that now." He crosses the room, stopping to kiss their dad on the forehead as well. "Feel better, Dad. I'll come by the house on Thursday to check on you, bring some of the stuff I'm working on."

Their dad yells after him in alarm, "Don't you dare bring anything radioactive this time!" but they all know it's fallen on deaf ears.

"Am I going to have to switch schools?" Kaden asks.

"Do you really want the three hour commute every day?" Papa answers, resuming his pacing.

"Sherlock, you can't make him leave all his friends,” Dad protests.

Their father just waves a hand dismissively, as if literally shooing the concern away. "He can make new friends."

"I'd rather not, if I don't have to," Kaden answers, and if it had been anyone else their father wouldn't have even _registered_ the protest. But it's Kaden, who barely ever kicks up a fuss, and by his standards this _is_ a fuss. She can already see her father reevaluating his options in light of a new variable.

"We're not going to make you change schools, dear,” Dad says, “because we're not moving, because I don't want to move, I'm fine, everyone's fine, so let's just everyone _shut up and be fine for a bit_ , yeah?"

Her father sighs theatrically and collapses into Andrew's abandoned chair, snatching Monica's tablet away from her in the process. She makes a disgusted noise at him but doesn't bother asking for it back. 

 

.

Kaden calls at three-thirty in the afternoon, which can only mean one thing. " _Monica, can I stay at your house this weekend?_ "

Monica sighs and waves away Donaldson apologetically. "What's going on now?"

" _They're being_ insane _, I can't take it anymore, please save me._ "

Monica leans backwards in her chair, rolling her eyes. She'd been adopted into a family of theatrical nincompoops. "Is this about you and that kid? Jeffrey?"

" _Jeremy, why is that so hard to remember?_ " Kaden complains. " _And no. It's about Dad, something about his shoulder, I don't know, they won't get into it in front of me_."

Monica frowns. "I thought he was having surgery on his foot?" It'd been planned for months, as far as she knew, replacing the ankle socket so he could move around a little easier. She forgets sometimes he's over sixty, and that he didn't spend all those years sitting pool side, taking care not to injure himself too badly. Of course having seen some of the reports on the various cases her parents have been involved in over the years she's just glad they're in one piece.

" _I don't know, I saw something on Papa's computer but when I checked later he'd already deleted the history and he's always giving Dad The Look lately and just_ please _let me stay with you?_ " He sounds so pathetic, and normally Monica would cave -- like she always does -- but, dammit, this is the fourth time in two weeks. She knows why he keeps asking her -- Andrew spends all his time obsessing over his work or his son, and more often than not Lucy's not even in the country. Still, Monica has a life too, and she's really gotten sick of being the default for everyone to dump on. Plus Beau had been planning some big to-do on Sunday, and damned if she's going to miss out because her teenage brother wants to mope in her living room another two days.

"Kaden, I really can't, not this weekend.” She cuts him off when he starts trying to argue. " _But_ I'll swing by with whoever's around tomorrow afternoon and we'll sort it out, okay?"

" _No_ ," he snipes, " _but I guess I don't have a choice_."

"That's the spirit," she tells him, mock cheerfully. "Don't let them know we're coming by, okay? It'll go better that way."

" _It'll be horrible no matter what_."

"Probably," she agrees. "I'll see you then."

She manages to get a hold of her siblings that night, pleasantly surprised to find everyone present and accounted for. They both complain about having to drive all the way out to Sussex on short notice but agree to do it anyway; their parents unnerving mortality is more of a motivator than they'd ever admit to, but it's there nonetheless. They meet up down the street from the house and proceed together in a show of solidarity, parking behind one another in the driveway.

They can hear the arguing before they even get inside the house. Lucy sighs dramatically and rolls her eyes.

Kaden lets them in, a rescued look on his face; Andrew scowls and takes the lead, Monica behind him, and Lucy bringing up the rear, tugging Kaden along with her.

“ _I've really had it with you, you know that?_ ”

"Since I've not got the brain of a malformed amoeba yes, I was aware of that already."

"Can you manage to not be a giant wanker _for ten minutes--_ "

"Alright, what's the rub?" Andrew calls out as they enter the sitting room. Dad's leaning over one of the high-backed chairs, his posture aggressive, like the chair is the only thing holding him back. Papa's several feet away, hands on his hips, a frown on his face. He's still got half his bee gear on, so he looks somewhat ridiculous, in her opinion, but his expression is so severe she can't laugh at him. 

Both their parents pause, and Monica can see them taking in the implications almost instantly. "You see, now you're disrupting your children's lives with this nonsense," Papa continues, and Dad gets so red in the face even his ears turn pink.

"What 'nonsense'?" Andrew asks, waving his hands at them.

"Your father is refusing to have his shoulder fixed," Papa answers, and the look Dad sends him makes Monica blink in surprise -- she can count on one hand the number of times she's seen him this mad.

"Sherlock _quit it,_ " he orders, but Papa just steamrolls right over him. "You think I don't know why you haven't told them?"

"I think you're a self-centered prig who needs to shut his mouth," Dad argues back. He looks tired -- really tired, Monica realizes. His eyes are red-rimmed, he's paler than normal, and even with the giant jumper he looks small, smaller than she's used to. Has he been like this since the last time she saw him? She would have noticed, of course she would have, she's a bloody Holmes, it's her job to notice things.

"Told us what?" Lucy interrupts sharply.

Dad looks at them, at each of them, and wilts. "It's not -- don't look like that. It's just surgery."

"What _kind_ of surgery?" Lucy presses.

"Brachial plexus reconstruction and shoulder arthroplasty," he answers, defeated.

"Dad, that's like your entire left side," Andrew blurts out, sounding worried, which since he doesn't worry about _anything_ is instantly enough to put everyone else on edge. "What the bloody hell makes them think you need that?"

"Probably something to do with the avascular necrosis from compressive damage to his brachial nerves," Papa snaps, then turns away sharply. Monica grabs Lucy’s hand quickly, because she's startled by what she sees -- her papa is _scared_. "Go ahead, John," he says to the porch, the fireplace, the study door. "Why don't you show them the expansive range of your arm -- or, no, never mind, you can't get it past twenty-five degrees. How about a recap of your self-adjusted pain scale, the one any reasonable person would have thrown out in favor of not stumbling around in blind agony? Or perhaps we can show them the scan of your shoulder and its imminent collapse, the dramatically increased likelihood of metastatic cell development, the--"

" _Papa,_ " Lucy says, and rushes across the room to nearly tackle him at the waist, clutch at him until he stops sounding like he's going to fall apart at the seams.

Monica turns as Andrew moves to tower over their dad -- who is, for the first time she can remember, looking lost. "Why don't you want to do this?" Andrew asks, hugging Dad with heart-breaking caution.

"It's too late, the damage is done," Dad says; if Monica had thought Dad looked small swimming in his jumper, he’s positively eclipsed by Andrew. It frightens her, to see him so thin, and in a terrible way, _frail_. "All it will do is put me out of commission for the whole next year."

"But you wouldn't be in any pain!" Kaden argues, looking stricken. Monica nods in agreement; Papa does not throw words like _agony_ around lightly. "Dad, if it's that bad _please_ do something about it," she says.

"Maybe I'll just hack the damn thing off," Dad grumbles, then adds, "Kidding, I'm kidding."

"Your sense of humor has always been lacking," Papa says, and thank God, he sounds like himself again. Emotional meltdowns are their dad's domain; from their normally unflappable father it's just unnerving.

Dad seems equally reassured. "Shut it Sherlock, I've had plenty from you today." He's arguing but the heat is gone from his voice, and instead he just sounds tired.

"Okay," Lucy says, pulling Papa around the sofa. "Both of you sit."

Papa sighs in exasperation but comes over to pull Dad away from Andrew, help him limp to the sofa and sit down. It occurs to Monica how many times she's seen him do this, how much of Dad's weight he takes these days, how natural he makes it all seem. She also knows right then that Dad will go for the surgery, if for no other reason than to make their father happy. She knows because she'd do the same for Beau, in the span of a heartbeat.

 

.

It had started, as these things so often did, with a household accident.

These days John isn’t the most agile of men, and he will never, ever tell Sherlock this, but the fall down the stairs at Baker Street (which in turn instigated the move to Sussex) was much, much worse than he let on.

His shoulder had never healed properly from the damage Moran had done to it. When he was a younger man it hadn’t been so bad, and he’d done well to compensate for it, but as he’s gotten older it seems more difficult to do the most ordinary of tasks. His tumble down the stairs had been the death knell on his ability to function with only the minimum of pain.

He hides it. He doesn’t know why, or to what end, but God help him, he hides it. The move to Sussex had solved a handful of problems (like the wretched staircase up to his beloved 221B), but opened up a whole new set. Sherlock spends most of each morning and early afternoon out with his bees, or tutoring a young girl, Samantha, from the nearby village who is morbidly interested in forensics and deduction, and John spends a good portion of that time staying very still, shoring up his strength for when his son got home from school. He tries very, very hard to be as normal as possible in the afternoons and evenings, and miraculously he’s become a better actor in the intervening years than he thought. Neither Sherlock nor Kaden notice anything amiss.

John doesn’t know how long he could have continued like that. Sherlock takes it neatly out of his hands one Tuesday morning by knocking into him accidentally in the hallway, and the pain is so strong it takes John’s breath away, so sharp that when he swims back to consciousness he’s on the floor, and Sherlock is holding on to him with a face white as a sheet.

(It was exactly twelve forty-seven when it happened. Sherlock knows this because John is standing right under the giant hanging clock on the wall. Sherlock had been trying to pull out a _stupid bloody trainer_ from inside their four hundred year old sidebar. The trainer is one of Kaden's, so denoted by its outlandish size and acidic color, garish enough to blind a person or possibly drive them insane. How Kaden got it stuck so high up Sherlock has no idea, or why it's only the one, but in the long history of strange things their children have done it doesn't even register.

John was perpendicular to both the sidebar and Sherlock for seemingly no reason other than to direct Sherlock like a particularly useless taskmaster. He says it's because this is clearly Sherlock's influence and therefore he should reap the 'rewards' but Sherlock is not stupid. John doesn't want to jolt his arm -- he barely wants to acknowledge its existence, much less use it for manual labor. Sherlock has watched John fold into himself in the last year, make himself into someone cautious and too careful, far too deliberate. He hides it exceptionally well, well enough that none of the kids have picked up on it, but Sherlock _knows_ him. As of late he knows more the absence of John's reach, his touch, his body. He's said nothing though; John does have his pride. Sherlock really hadn't thought it was that bad.

On this count Sherlock is very, very wrong. He finally yanks out the trainer, knocking into John as he does so, because the foolish, senile, brain-dead _idiot_ is standing right behind him. Sherlock shoves back into John, his elbow hitting the soft inside of John's own. He turns around to berate John and finds himself trying to catch his husband instead, who is crumpling down onto the floor. He shouts John's name, and his mind hollers in blind panic. _Jesus Christ, he's having a stroke._

He's not though, of course he's not. Despite the alarmingly pale shade and the complete lack of responsiveness and the whites of his eyes and the obvious tremors running through his body John is still breathing, is making faces, terrible faces, lost, derailed by pain. Sherlock pulls out his phone to call emergency services anyway. He's hanging up as John finally, finally, opens his eyes.

What comes next is a week-long fight that ends with him going to live with Andrew for three hours, but it proves his point nicely.)

“We scared the kids,” John says quietly, that night when everyone is finally tucked into bed. The children had elected to stay the weekend, which didn’t happen quite as often as John would like. He wishes it hadn’t been under these circumstances.

Sherlock’s anger has been a bright, furious thing, in every look and word, but never, never in his touch. Even now he helps John into bed, careful with his leg. John tries to catch his eye and can’t -- Sherlock won’t even look at him. “How long is this going to go on?”

“For as long as necessary,” Sherlock snaps, gently tucking the blanket up over him. “And for the record, _you_ scared the children by behaving like a proper fool. I won’t be lumped into that category.”

“Sherlock.”

Whatever is in his tone works -- Sherlock glares at him once more before deflating visibly. He sits carefully at John’s side. “You haven’t told me why.”

“Why what?”

“Don’t play stupid.”

John’s never been able to keep anything from his husband, not when Sherlock wore that particular expression. It breaks his heart to see it now. “I’m not sure,” he tells him quietly, embarrassed and ashamed. “I suppose I -- sometimes, I still feel like that young man eager to show off to you, to show you my worth, and keeping up with you is a part of that.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Sherlock snaps.

“I know it is.” John takes Sherlock’s hand in his, warming his own cold fingers. He hates how vulnerable Sherlock looks, hates more that he’s been the one to do that to him. “And it’s utterly unfounded in reality. We’re retired, sort of, and you piddle about keeping your bees. I think it was just about proving to myself that I was fine, that I could keep up with you and Kaden. Vanity, I suppose, and a bit of stubborness.”

“That’s not all.”

“Are you really going to make me admit it?” Damn Sherlock, for always being too perceptive by half, for having such power over him with a single look. 

“You heard what the surgeon said,” Sherlock says, as if _he’s_ the one with the medical degree. “No more than six hours at the top of it.”

“I don’t want surgery.”

“You don’t have a choice,” Sherlock nearly shouts, breathing roughly out from his nose. “You’re sixty four, John, in the prime of your life.”

He snorts. “Almost sixty five. Hardly the prime, love.”

“It isn’t like when we were younger,” Sherlock replies, glaring. “People are living comfortably into their nineties and hundreds. _We_ will be living into our nineties and hundreds, I’ve made certain of it. We’re comfortable here, aren’t we? Eating healthy, exercising.”

John relaxes now, finally, leaning back into his pillows. Even after thirty years of marriage, Sherlock could still make him remember why he fell in love with him to begin with. “Very comfortable. You’ve always taken good care of our family.”

“Then I simply see no reason why this -- you -- have to go on in pain, shortening your lifespan by years, perhaps even decades.” And he means it, John can tell, just as he can tell it comes from a well of love Sherlock will probably never fully understand. 

John squeezes his hand tightly. “I suppose I don’t.” 

It takes a minute to sink in, and then Sherlock is looking up at him, studying him. “You mean that.”

“I rarely say things I don’t mean, Sherlock,” John tells him. “It’s going to be months of rehab. A full year, maybe. And there’s no way to know if I’ll be able to walk or move around after the fact.” He swallows, a knot burning in his throat. “I’ve seen it happen. There aren’t guarantees.”

“But you won’t be in pain,” Sherlock says, and John considers, not for the first time, just how badly he scared his husband that day in the hall. “And there won’t be chances of cancer developing.”

“Less chance,” John reminds him gently. “And less pain. Best case scenario, I heal and I can move around pain free. In all likelihood I’ll develop arthritis, but not for a few years. I’ll walk and move just fine. Worst case scenario, my body rejects the joints. I may lose the arm or foot, a portion of my shoulder, maybe even some of my chest.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Sherlock says firmly. “Mycroft has already contacted surgeons from Johns Hopkins and Massachusetts General Hospital, an anesthesiologist from India who’s world renowned, and a neurosurgeon from Canada that has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine.” He leans forward. “Nothing, I repeat, _nothing_ is going to happen to you through negligence or incompetence.”

Sherlock stands, gently helps John get more comfortable -- John is mortified by how long it takes him, with the use of only one arm. Sherlock tucks the blankets up around him, runs his fingers once through John’s hair. “It’s up to you,” he says. “I won’t tell you what to do. It is, as you reminded me at top volume the other day, your body. But don’t deny yourself years of your life because of fear, John.”

 

.

All told it takes just under seven hours to replace Dad’s shoulder and ankle as well as finish the nerve graft. They all crowd inside the hospital room he's to be wheeled back to, trying to be calm and patient and sufficiently distracting for their father. Papa spends the entire time motionless to the point of catatonia, doesn't really answer their questions, and barely seems like he's aware at all. It's so different from the other times Monica's seen him in these settings, where he's frantic and loud and forceful, not at all hesitant about throwing his weight around. Now he looks... diminished.

She hates it.

Eventually Dad comes back, unconscious and looking more mummy than man. Papa moves to sit by the side of the bed and takes his hand. 

"He was hiding it from me." Papa tells her, while Lucy has taken Kaden out for food, Andrew has gone to drop the baby off with Kelly, and Beau got called off to a case in Norfolk. It's after eight and Monica should start heading home, they've been at hospital the entire day, but she finds she really can't leave just yet. Instead she sits next to him and leans her head on his shoulder, feels a wash of relief as he relaxes against her. "I found out by accidentally bumping him into the entryway wall. I thought he was having a stroke."

He hasn't told anyone else that, she knows, and probably wouldn't either. She's not sure why he treats her differently in this respect but loves it nonetheless, the little piece of her father no one else has. She looks down to where he's still holding her dad’s hand.

"Loving someone can be a terrible thing, sometimes," he tells her. She thinks about losing her mother, the first person she’d ever loved, the one person who deserved it the least, and finds she has to agree.

 

.

It takes exactly one hour and twenty eight minutes for the anesthesia to wear off.

This situation is, unfortunately, nothing new: John’s been here too many times to count. The groggy feeling, the nausea, and way the world is bucking and swaying underneath him is all far too familiar. What’s new is this lack of mobility. Every time he’s come out of surgery he could at least wiggle his fingers, his toes, lift his head, and readjust himself until he’s comfortable. This time there’s a terrifying sensation added to the mix: he can’t seem to locate half of his body.

He cries out, because he can’t move his arm, or his leg, and the others are tied down in some way, because his body won’t respond to a thing that he tells it to. He doesn’t remember what happened – an accident maybe, _his children_ , where are the children? He’d been pushing Kaden in the pram – no, Kaden was older now, they hadn’t had the pram in years. Monica? Where was Lucy? And Andrew and – oh, George, little George, his grandson. George had a pram, maybe it was his pram?

He’s trying to think but it’s so hard, and there is the sensation of pain now, something dull under layers and layers, as if it has been pushed down to the very recesses of his brain, cut off from everything else. His head is pounding, oh God, and he can’t move it no matter how hard he tries and he cries out again and again, fighting without strength because he’s trapped, _oh god he’s trapped_. He’s drowning in terror, something screaming by his ear, and voices, there are so many voices all around him and he’s trying to be strong and fight the panic eating him up like a giant, black maw.

Finally, a voice cuts through all the rest and John freezes. It speaks, again, and again, and after a long time it comes into focus.

“—alright now,” his husband says, and John can finally turn his head to the sound of his voice. “That’s good,” Sherlock murmurs, soothing, and now that the fear is fading John can feel Sherlock’s fingers stroking through his sweat-damp hair, can smell his unique scent under an ugly, antiseptic smell. “You’re alright, John. There’s nothing to be afraid of, you’re in hospital. You had a nasty reaction to something the anesthesiologist gave you, but it seems to be fading already.”

John makes a sound, guttural; his throat hurts in a way that suggests it would be a lot worse if he wasn’t so up-to-the-eyeballs in medication. Sherlock says, “You’re alright now. The surgery went beautifully John, and you’re going to be just fine.”

He tries to speak again, to get Sherlock to understand, but he needn’t have bothered; he was, after all, married to the world’s greatest detective. “Everyone is fine, the children are here. Andrew stepped out to take George to Kelly’s, but he’ll be back in a bit.”

He hears their voices, from very far away. Something nudges against his lips, and Sherlock says, “You can have a sip of water,” and John opens his mouth for the straw. It’s hard work, and seems to take forever, but finally a cold rush of water hits his tongue and it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted. Sherlock takes it away far too soon, and when he makes a low sound of disgruntlement Sherlock says, “You can have some more in a little while. Go back to sleep, John. I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

John believes him, because Sherlock said he would be and that was that. He’s still worried by his lost arm and leg, somewhere, but the children are fine, and he’s alright too, and he’s so exhausted he thinks the state of his limbs can wait for a little bit.

 

.

As wonderful as their Papa is he is by no means a natural caregiver. Since Grandmum hadn’t been either Monica is pretty sure that's where he gets it from (or doesn't, in this case). None of them are quite sure what Dad's recovery is going to be like, or who Papa is going to hire to help, but they all assume it'll be a small army of people.

None of them were expecting this.

"I don't know why you absurd children are so surprised," he tells her, carefully piling a nutritionally perfect meal onto a tray, lining the eight million medications Dad is on next to it. "I'm clearly the superior choice to a group of strangers and this is hardly rocket science."

"Papa, this is the first time I've seen you make something that didn't end up burnt," she says warily. "You're acting like a pod person."

He scowls at her. "Pick that up then, while you're here to harass me." She obediently takes the tray and he goes to get the paper and Dad's academic journals.

Dad's half-asleep when they get to the bedroom, his foot propped up, his arm in a sling, and leaning against a veritable mountain of pillows. He brightens at the sight of them. "Hello, dear. What brings you all the way out here?"

She smiles and puts the tray down next to him, kisses him on the forehead. "Heard reports an alien disguised as your husband was taking over the house, rearranging the cupboards, that sort of thing."

Dad snorts as Papa imperiously ignores her comments, choosing to dig through the closet for something instead. "Sorry to disappoint but I married the alien."

"I tire of you both," Papa announces, and Monica starts to laugh.

 

.

Monica's father is in the middle of completely _eviscerating_ Monica's colleagues, "Next time why don't you just drag the body behind you, tied to the boot of your car, if you're keen on destroying any valuable evi--" when he breaks off, quite literally, mid-word.

He turns and stalks off several steps, whipping his phone out as he goes. The three DIs, two constables, two forensic analysts, and one bewildered coroner immediately start flicking their gazes between Monica and her father, half pleading, half terrorized. Monica has seen her father on a case before, but she's never seen him _investigate_. It's quite a revelation.

She waves a hand in their direction and follows him, picking up on the last few words he says, "--on the phone."

"Is this about the case?" she asks, though she knows his rules about interrupting.

Predictably he shushes her, and after a moment says into the phone, "Of course I did, it wasn't difficult."

He pauses, listening, and it takes a moment for her to figure out what that look on his face means. "Why are you calling Dad?"

"Quiet, child," Papa tells her, and she looks to high heaven, praying to God none of her coworkers heard that. Going by the snickers her prayers were denied. "Any progress? What about your exercises?" He frowns at whatever Dad is telling him. Her dad has been about as pleasant as an injured bear the last six weeks. "I don't care if you think they're degrading, you're meant to do them twice a day....You're not in the army anymore, John, you couldn't make it through an evolution if your life depended on it... Go ahead and skip them, I'll come home with Gucci's entire fall line, see that I don't." He's silent for a few moments, listening, then waves a dismissive hand out at the crime scene. "No, they're all incompetent, it's only luck their mediocrity hasn't infected our daughter yet."

Monica sighs. Loudly. Her father just rolls his eyes and walks away from her, chatting nonstop. Monica rubs a hand across the back of her neck and turns to sort out the scene. When her father returns -- a full twenty-five minutes later -- she eyes him malevolently. "Finished?"

"Obviously, don't tell me your faculties have degraded to that point." He starts a sweeping examination of the far wall of the building where the body was found.

"Why couldn't you have called him later?" she asks, annoyed. She knows it's been stressful for him, watching her dad go through surgery, through recovery and rehab. She's pretty sure he hasn't slept more than four hours a night since the whole thing started. It's been a bloody revelation, watching her father dote on her dad -- calmly and competently and completely without the slightest acknowledgment that that's what he's doing, but it _is_ doting nonetheless. Given how frail her dad looked the first few weeks she can understand why, and she sympathizes, really. But Dad is clearly _fine_ now, he's recovering fantastically according to all the reports, surely her father could have waited twenty bloody minutes.

"He has to take his meds at this time every night, it's the only time he's guaranteed to be awake," her father says, poking at a spot in the wall with one gloved finger.

"You called him this morning," she points out. They'd talked for half an hour during breakfast, and Papa refused to go to the crime scene until they'd hung up.

"Only time he's guaranteed to be awake before noon."

"So you're just going to stop whatever it is you're doing and call? What if we're chasing down a suspect?"

Her father shrugs. "They'll have to wait." He steps back from the wall. "Not likely to happen though, since your suspect is currently watching us from...." he glances around, points, "that window."

Everyone turns to look up. A man looks back down at them. They move. The suspect moves. Monica takes off down the alley, wondering how the hell her father did it. 

 

.

"About bloody time," Dad gripes, sat outside in his favorite porch chair, ostensibly to enjoy the lovely, perfect weather. Monica gives Andrew a sideways look and he twists his mouth in the same peculiar way Papa does when he's trying not to laugh. Papa himself has already gone and pulled up a chair next to Dad's, and sits in it as he starts poking at Dad's various casts and braces and wraps, grumbling loudly about Andrew's ability to provide adequate medical care and Dad's foolish pride and that a week away was clearly much, much too long.

After about ten minutes of this -- which Monica spends playing with her adorable and perfect nephew while Andrew fields all of Papa's consternation -- Dad finally interrupts, "Can you _move_ already?"

"Hmm?" Papa asks, then, "Oh." He gets up and crouches on Dad's other side, where Dad's good arm can reach up and touch the side of Papa's face and all the wrinkles that appear when he smiles. "Welcome back," Dad says, and kisses him hello.

 

.

" _Are you home?_ "

Monica frowns in the direction of her phone. "I literally just walked in the door, why -- oh _Kaden_. Seriously."

" _It's just until Sunday!_ "

"Did it ever occur to you that I could have plans?"

Kaden huffs into the phone. " _You and Beau are the most boring people on earth, all you're going to do is go out to breakfast and watch bad sci-fi in bed_."

"So you are aware of my plans, then." She toes off her shoes and walks into the bedroom. "What are they doing now?"

" _Being bloody disgusting, that's what. Monica_ he keeps grabbing Papa's arse when he thinks I'm not looking _, and then Papa tells him to stop being randy and Dad says he's enjoying finally feeling things in his fingers again and oh my God Monica it's horrible and I can't be in that house any more, it's going to scar me mentally for life_."

Monica blinks as it hits her. "You're already in the cab, aren't you?"

" _Yeah, I'll be there in like ten minutes_."

She throws her free hand up in defeat. "Let yourself in," she says, and hangs up. Nincompoops, all of them.


End file.
